Blog si Feminis

I got the following poem from a friend from England. He told me that he got the idea from reading some posts of mine in my blog at http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk

Talking about prison … who is willing to be imprisoned by someone else?

Where is the consensus that men wear trousers and women wear dresses/skirts from?
Just like in my dwelling place, Java island of Indonesia; the traditional clothes of women and men are made such a way that for women, women still cannot move freely while men still can do that.
I relate it to the old belief in China that beautiful women had small feet.
It made women not be able to move fast and freely.
Men as the dominant part of society made it such a way that women couldn’t move freely. It would make women depend on men to do anything. When a woman is dependent on a man, this man will feel needed, superior, strong, masculine, macho, etc.
Some time ago, I told my students when talking about why girls have skirt for their uniform while boys have trousers, that it was created by men so that when men want to do violence, women cannot run away easily. When men want to rape women, women cannot escape themselves safely. Women cannot go anywhere without the permission of men as the dominant. On the contrary, men go anywhere they want without caring whether their women agree with them. Women’s opinion is really not important coz women are considered as the weaker sex.
My students were shocked when hearing me say so. But they couldnt argue more to me.
10.20 240406

Talking about clothes, many private companies in Indonesia still oblige their female employees to wear skirts or dresses, and not let them wear trousers or pants. One reason for this, “Women are to wear dresses or skirts.” Can I say it as, “Women are created to wear dresses or skirts?” LOL. The uniform for female civil servants is also a skirt plus a blouse. ALWAYS SKIRT. Even policewomen wear skirts too. How could they move as freely and comfortably as their counter partner—policemen?
And as I said before, Indonesian people easily judge other people as abnormal when they don’t conform to society’s norms, such as this trivial thing, wearing dresses or trousers for women. I can conclude it as that women must look feminine—wearing dresses and skirt will make women look feminine. (Perhaps that’s what majority people think.) and if a woman is not feminine, SHE IS NOT NORMAL. And this norm is so strong that many women are not confident to deviate it although in their daily activities (not in formal occasions), many women already wear jeans or pants.
I find out that many women think of what other people say about their appearance very seriously. The principle, “You are what you think…” is not really well-known in Indonesia. People still believe, “You are what other people think about you…” Therefore, people consider society’s norms very seriously, no matter what happens to them. One example. To look feminine and slim, women wear straight and narrow skirts or dresses instead of loose ones. Straight and narrow skirts or dresses here is to make them look slimmer. “If you are a woman, and want to attract guys’ attention, make sure that you are slim.” That’s what many people believe.
To attract people’s—especially the opposite sex—attention, many women torture themselves wearing such skirts or dresses and high-heeled shoes although they don’t really feel comfortable to move. A year ago, a neighbor of mine got an accident while riding a motorcycle. I believe her narrow skirt made her not easy to move, so that when suddenly a big bus passed by close to her quickly and she couldnt keep her balance (coz she couldnt move her legs easily while riding a motorcycle), she fell down. She had to be hospitalized for some weeks coz of that accident. And it’s all caused by that silly obligation-wearing-skirt-for-women and also that woman-must-be-feminine-as-something-normal belief in Indonesia.
In my own workplace, there is also a rule for female employees to wear skirts. Only my female workmates in my department—English Department—wear trousers to the office. I dont give a damn on it. It is related to human rights, I suppose, to wear something as long as it is decent enough to wear in workplaces. I wear long dress coz I feel comfortable with it, not coz I want to obey the rules, LOL, nor to look feminine. Besides, for my dresses, I always choose stretch material and quite loose so that I still can move easily and comfortably.
Employees from other department always see us as rebels. I know that. But, can you imagine what is the relationship between teaching—to improve students’ knowledge—with wearing skirts for female teachers? LOL.
It reminds me of what Charlotte Perkins Gilman said about women’s clothes in the nineteenth century America, “When you can plainy prove to a woman that her dress is unhealthful unbeautiful, immoral, and yet she persists in wearing it, there seems no possible reason but women are fools.” LOL.
Well, perhaps no need as extreme as that. In my opinion, women in Indonesia just don’t feel confident to look different—meaning not look feminine; not confident to be gossiped coz their way of getting dressed that doesn’t follow the norm or the rules in their workplaces. (Can I say that the makers of the rules in those workplaces are fools, and not the women?) Don’t they think that women can still look feminine—well, if this is very important for women to look feminine—although wearing a suit—trousers plus blazer or jacket, and not a skirt/dress plus blazer/jacket/blouse. Until now I don’t get any satisfactory answer why in the rules female employees must wear skirt/dress but saying, “Women are to wear dress/skirt, and not trousers/pants.” Full stop. Not negotiable.
Not intellectual at all, do you agree?
22.04 230406

Every April 21 Indonesian people celebrate Kartini’s Day. Kartini is one heroine in Indonesia for her struggle for women’s education at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kartini was one daughter of a so-called mayor in her hometown, living 1879-1904. As one daughter coming from a high social class family, she could enjoy going to elementary school. She was luckier than any other girls around her age who couldnt go to school coz school was very expensive. Besides, going to school was not a common thing yet for those coming from middle-low class society. Moreover girls.
However, Kartini couldnt continue her study to junior high school, with a (now obviously) simlpe reason: because she is ONLY a girl. Absolutely, she felt very discriminated by her parents coz her brothers continued their studies. To respect Javanese culture, of course Kartini obeyed her parents. However, it didnt stop her dream. She continued writing letters to her Dutch friends, confiding in them about her unfavorable situation, especially, and also for other girls generally. During her spare time, before her parents “forced” her to marry their chosen guy, Kartini gathered some girls around her neighborhood to teach them to read and write.
Because of her struggle, Soeharto regime chose her to be one of heroine in Indonesia, and decided April 21, Kartini’s birthday, as Kartini’s Day.
I remember when I was at kindergarten and elementarsy school in 1970s, I used to wear kebaya and jarit to commemorate Kartini’s Day. Kebaya and jarit are traditional Javanese clothes for women. I didnt know why we should do that to commemorate Kartini’s Day. What I knew was everytime I saw Kartini’s picture, she was wearing those traditional clothes. If Kartini were chosen to be heroine of Indonesia for her struggle to give women education, why didnt those teachers of mine have some programs related to educative things, such as writing poems, letters, articles or reading, or painting, or other things instead of wearing those traditional clothes; why did we just copy kartini’s way of getting dressed as if that were what Kartini struggled—girls to wear traditional clothes.
One thing I knew was that I really disliked wearing those clothes because that little active Nana couldnt move freely, nor walk easily either. When I was a little, I often played with boys and played “boys” games, such as flying kites, marbles, climbing trees, climbing roofs, etc. Wearing such clothes that made me difficult to move is of course not my choice.
When I was in secondary school in the beginning till the middle of 1980s, I trickly usually tried to avoid the obligation of wearing those traditional clothes on Kartini’s Day with lots of excuses.
After feminism ideology came to Indonesia and spread in many places, people started to question why celebrating Kartini’s Day is related to wearing those clothes. Ayu Utami, one feminist writer in Indonesia said, “Perhaps we should commemorate Diponegoro’s birthday by wearing sorban and similar clothes Diponegoro used to wear; just like what we usually see in his pictures? LOL.
I dont find many schools oblige their students to wear those traditional clothes on Kartini’s Day these recent few years, especially since the late of 1990s. I am wondering whether people no longer praise Kartini as one heroine and Soeharto no longer reigned Indonesia, or coz people start to realize that wearing those clothes to commemorate Kartini’s Day is not an appropriate way. However, this morning on one local newspaper, I read an article about some private companies asked their female employees to wear those clothes. And some women interviewed said, ”I feel like I am Kartini when wearing these clothes.” Oh well …
Is it that simple TO BE KARTINI? That is to wear similar clothes what she used to wear, without inheriting her main struggle for women—to give women the same chances as men to pursue study and any career women want?
17.30 230406

I have been trying to be supportive for people to write their blog, I suppose, besides i also encourage them to view my blog to find out what kind of person I am. I will love it to know that more and more Indonesian people write, not just watch television with those nasty and sucking sinetrons or commercials, or just hang out at malls without any clear reason to do.

Writing is, in my opinion, an activity that involves intellectual. I want more and more people to be more intellect, to be more aware of what is going on in their country, to be more critical, to be more mature.

To write something to post in blogs is one thing. It can give someone satisfaction. Well, this is what i think. To know people read our posts in our blogs is another satisfaction. To get comment is indeed something more satisfying. I will love it much more again when i know that people agree with what I write (and think) and my writings open their horizon to new perspective in life.

However, tonight, someone just offended me. I am a humorous person, yes, that’s what my friends and students say about me. I love having jokes with them. However, I dont easily talk about jokes, especially nasty jokes with people I dont know very well. It will offend me very easily.

Haven’t I made it clear what kind of person I am via my writings here? I am a feminist. I always want to see equality between men and women. I want men respect women just like what they have been thinking so far that women must respect men coz they have been indoctrinated that men are superior to women so that men don’t need to respect women.

Haven’t I made myself clear via my writings here that i am a romantic person with only the one I love? Not with any men, moreover with strangers. NO WAY.

I hate it.

I just opened a blog. I knew the site from www.blogfam.com and the owner is the founder of this site.

Her name is Labibah and I just bought her book containing collection of short stories some months ago. The title is Addicted to Weblog. After finishing my study, I became more addicted to blogging. No wonder the title of that book intrigued me. LOL.

Labibah started blogging around two years ago. And she published her first book containing her short stories in 2006.

I posted my first writing in my friendster blog last year, especially March 2005. It was the "improved version" of my email to my loved one. My second post was in September 2005. Again, it was the "improved version" of my email to the same person. LOL. (He is really the source of my inspiration as well as my catharsis. Wow!!!) The third post underwent the same process. LOL. Dia memang laksana oase di gurun padang pasir yang luas dan panas tatkala aku menemui kebuntuan tatkala menulis tesis, maupun tatkala some personal problems came to me, meluluhlantakkan konsentrasiku tatkala menulis tesis, tatkala aku merasa begitu desperate karena sesuatu hal. He is the one who always comes to my mind for the first time when I need to talk to someone coz I feel annoyed, hurt, and some other ill feelings. Therefore, writing him emails really a BIG HELP for me.

I still underestimated the existence of blog at that time.

I started to think of writing for my blog more seriously around November 2005. After finishing my study, and looking for more challenges in my life, (writing that catharsis of mine emails is not a challenge for me. It is a HOBBY. LOL. Or to some extent, a NEED. LOL.) I turned to blog. I relate it to my obsession when I was at junior high school–to be a writer. My experience to write lots of papers in my study encouraged me to make this obsession come true.

In December I got to know a new blogsite at www.blog.co.uk I registered myself there. However, honestly, coz the appearance of the blog there is not as cute as in this friendster blog, I didnt post anything there till January. I posted only one writing in December 2005.

In January I started to post my writings both in my FS blog and in that blog belonging to UK. And in fact, more people read my posts there, more people write comments on my posts, more people appreciate my feministic view, more people find me just an ordinary person with such a way of thinking (compared to people around me–in Indonesia, in Semarang generally, in my workplace especially–who always consider me weird) I communicate more with my blog friends I got from that UK blogsite than with my FS friends.

Well, I also just opened a blogsite belonging to a feminist writer working for "Jurnal Perempuan", my favorite journal, Sofia Kartika said that writing in blog can be media to share what we have, especially for us, feminists, we can educate people–women especially–about gender bias, about equality between men and women via our writings. I absolutely agree with her. However, frankly speaking, I am doubtful if some FS friends of mine read what I write here so that I can also widen their horizon about this unfair male-dominated world. (Oh well, to widen their horizon, to awake them, or to provoke them? LOL.)

(Btw, FYI, right now I am working on two computers, one I opened this friendster, my blog at UK, and my Yahoo mailbox. And in the other computer, I opened my blog at UK too, plus my blogs at blogspot coz I am trying to put something for the template, I also opened some others … And suddenly right now I lost my idea to continue writing here. LOL. As usual, I let myself distracted by some trivial things. Uhh …)

Going back to Labibah, the owner of www.blogfam.com She has her first book published in 2006 after she did the blogging since 2004.

Do I need two years after the first time I did blogging to have my first book published? LOL.

Btw, I just got a comment from my nice blog friend from Portugal warning me about people who steal some people’s writings in their blogs. She is worried if someone, or some people already steal my love poems. Oh no … So I told her that it’s better for me to delete those posts on my poems. Hmm … The same case has happened to her!!! She suggested to find a publishing company soon to have my poems published. Hmmm … And she promised to buy one. Wow … Different from my dear good friend living in Bandung, she said, "Nana dear, I will not buy your book coz I already know the story." LOL. So I replied, "Well, you don’t need to buy one. I will give you one copy for free of course." LOL.

Ciao.

Hari Kamis, 20 April 2006.
Aku meninggalkan rumah sebelum jam 08.00. Aku tidak sempat ke fitness centre pagi ini karena ada rapat jurusan yang harus kuhadiri jam 08.30. Kemarin aku sempet protes untuk memulai rapat agak siangan, yah … sekitar jam 09.00 lah, tapi yang berwewenang untuk menentukan rapat dimulai jam berapa tidak setuju. Pablebuat? Semenjak aktif kembali di PARADISE CLUB, hampir tiap hari aku ke sana, aerobics, kadang kulanjutkan dengan fitness, dan kalo hari libur, aku berenang.
Sebelum rapat, aku sempat ngecheck mailbox dan blog ku tercinta yang di http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk I love my virtual friends I got from this blogsite. Mereka begitu manis untuk mengunjungi blog ku dan juga menulis comment, dan begitu rajin menulis. Heran, dari mana saja mereka mendapatkan ide dan energi untuk selalu menulis?
Rapat usai pukul 12.00. Setelah makan siang, aku masih sempat ngecheck email dan blogku lagi. (How I am really addicted to blog!!!) Semenjak join milis pria_sehat_tanpa_celana@yahoogroups.com aku sering mendapatkan alamat-alamat sejumlah blog milik orang Indonesia yang sangat inspiring bagiku. Banyak juga ternyata orang Indonesia yang suka nulis, meskipun aku dikitari oleh orang-orang yang membaca pun wallahu ‘alam, LOL, apalagi menulis. LOL.
Aku ada kelas pukul 13.15-15.00. Pertemuan perdana. Hanya ada sepuluh mahasiswa yang datang. Entah karena memang jumlah mahasiswa yang hanya sepuluh, atau karena ini adalah minggu pertama dan biasanya banyak mahasiswa yang bolos, so yang datang hanya sejumlah itu.
Aku mengajar lagi jam 17.00-19.00. Dan seperti biasa, jeda jam mengajar yang dua jam itu kupake untuk berhubungan dengan teman-teman mayaku, lewat blog.
Aku sudah sampai ke lantai satu tadi, untuk segera pulang. Angie pasti sudah menungguku untuk makan malam bersama. Tapi … ternyata hujan turun sangat deras disertai halilintar yang memekakkan telinga, tambah lagi angin yang sangat kencang. Aku bingung, antara tetap nekad pulang menerjang hujan, atau menunggu barang beberapa menit?
Setelah menimbang-nimbang, akhirnya aku balik lagi ke lantai sepuluh di mana kantorku terletak. Menyalakan komputer lagi, membuka email, membuka blogku sendiri maupun blog teman-teman mayaku, dan … aku jadi kepengen menulis di sini.
Hujan masih terdengar sangat deras. Halilintar masih sering terlihat dari balik jendela, juga suara gemuruhnya.
Harus berapa lama lagi aku akan menunggu di sini?
Angie sudah makan belum ya??? Anak semata wayangku yang masih suka kolokan kalau makan harus bareng Mamanya ini kadang makan sendiri kalau aku pulang telat seperti malam ini. Tapi, kadang-kadang juga kepala batunya membuat dia menungguku, untuk makan bersama. Ah … Angie-ku yang manis … sedang apa dia ya di tengah hujan begini? Belajar untuk mempersiapkan ujian akhir SMP-nya? Sembari mendengarkan lagu-lagu di radio kesayangannya. Ataukah sedang bermain game di komputer?
Aku ingin segera pulang. Aku sendiri sudah merasa gerah, ingin segera melepas baju kerjaku ini (seperti biasa, rok panjang hitam, T-shirt hitam, dan blazer hitam), kemudian membersihkan diri dengan mandi. Aku juga sudah ingin mengetik diary di komputerku di rumah. Atau menulis puisi untuk seseorang yang selalu menjadi sumber inspirasiku.
Tapi suara hujan tak juga mereda.
Sudah hampir pukul 20.00. Sepertinya aku sebaiknya menerjang hujan malam ini. Untuk segera kembali, kepada seseorang yang menanti. Angie. Really love to have her in my life.
Mommy is coming sweetie …

I have one female workmate who likes carrying backpack when going to the office. With she wearing a suit (trousers and a blazer), I believe people will find her look weird. It is widely assumed that when women wear a suit, they are supposed to carry a handbag, and not a backpack. Some students of ours comment on this habit of hers by saying, “She is really funky.” LOL. My workmate’s simple reason is, “Well, with this backpack, I can carry lots of books and many other things too.” It is absolutely logical, isn’t it?
Another workmate of mine who likes wearing a long dress and a blazer, likes wearing sneakers and sometimes I see her carrying backpack too. One day she told me that it was very common for her to find people on the bus look at her big backpack weirdly while she looked feminine with her long dress. I bet those bus passengers thought that my workmate was supposed to carry a handbag. LOL. People who carry backpack mostly wear jeans and a T-shirt; and they don’t go to the office but going hiking or camping. LOL. Some months ago, a student bought her a handbag. My friend commented, “So, you give me this handbag coz you consider it is not appropriate for a female employee like me carrying a backpack or what?” LOL. That particular student didn’t answer, just smiled. In the meantime, some other students commented on her wearing sneakers. (Perhaps on the bus, the passengers didn’t have time to look at her till her feet wearing sneakers. ) “Why does that Ms. X like wearing her child’s sneakers? She doesn’t have high-heeled shoes?” LOL. Well, her simple reason is, “It is really much more comfortable wearing sneakers rather than high-heeled shoes. I can run faster when the situation obliges me to do it.” LOL. Whenever she comes to a new class, and she realizes that the students in that class look at her sneakers weirdly, she says that reason.
Well, this happens in Indonesia where people easily judge other people ABNORMAL only coz they don’t follow society’s norms, including those simple things, such as wearing sneakers or high-heeled shoes, carrying a backpack or a handbag for female employees.
I really like this new generation of women who don’t really give a damn on stereotypical feminine roles for women. Who says that women must be feminine?
21.53 13042006

A friend of mine has been involved in PRANIC healing for some years.
If you want to know what PRANIC healing is all about, you can visit the following website.

www.pranichealing.com/about.html

At first, she joined one workshop held by it for her own medication coz she has been suffering from poor eyesight since she was in elementary school (she is in her mid thirties now). Wearing glasses only is not enough for her. And she has tried some other alternative medication (e.g. drinking herbs, consuming lots of carrots, nerve massages around her eyes, acupuncture, etc), but they didn’t work on her.
In fact, after joining the workshop, and sometimes attending the clinic for medication and practicing, she involved herself to that clinic, not for her own medication though. She became one volunteer to try healing patients suffering from any kind of illness. One interesting thing she told me is that many women coming to that clinic told her that they were suffering from splitting headache. Those women have consulted their doctors but they couldn’t find out the causes of the headache. The medicine given to them didn’t work well. They also have consulted a sinshe (a sort of traditional physician popularly known in China) and consumed traditional medicine given by the sinshe, and still it didn’t work either.
My friend, trying to find out what caused the headache, asked those women about their daily life. Her suspicion was that they were suffering from mental depression, therefore a general practitioner couldn’t find anything wrong with their body coz they needed to consult a psychiatrist. However, they didn’t want to admit that in fact they were depressed coz in Indonesia when someone consults a psychiatrist, people will easily judge him or her as insane or lunatic. Insanity is believed as a curse illness and someone cannot be healed back like before. Well, this is in Indonesia.
Why women?
I relate it to this male-dominated world with its patriarchal culture. The belief that women are only the Second Sex as Beauvoir stated is still strong so that men feel deserved to oppress women, by saying e.g. “I know this case better than you do. Leave it up to me. You don’t need to do anything in it.” or, “This is man’s stuff. You don’t need to involve yourself in this case.” “I do this because I love you, so you’ve got to understand me. This is for your own sake.”
People are different from one another. Some women perhaps will agree that their husbands love them very dearly when those men say so to them. However, it is also possible that many other women feel forced to understand it. Nevertheless, they cannot do anything because patriarchal culture, and oftentimes legitimated by religion’s teaching, says that women must obey their husbands, must submit themselves to their husbands, must agree when their husbands opine something.
One example happened to my old friend. Some years ago, she visited me and told me about one case that happened between her husband and her, relating to where (in what school) their first child would continue the study. My friend had different idea from her husband. She kept trying to convince him that her choice was better for their son’s future while her husband didn’t agree with her. After some days arguing, my friend at last gave in, when her husband said to her, “You don’t consider me as a man? Why don’t you listen to me?”
What a foolish statement it was. To me it was. YOU ARE A MAN ONLY IF YOUR WIFE LISTENS TO YOU, OBEYS YOU, SUBMIT TO YOU. But, abracadabra … it worked well to silence this old friend of mine!!! “I cannot argue anymore after he said such a thing to me.” she went on telling me.
If this phenomenon happens now and again, it is not impossible if then it will engender the feeling of being oppressed to women. For some women who think that they are indeed the second sex, must give priority to their husband, it will be just okay. For some other women, they will feel differently. However, coz they think that MEN ARE CREATED TO BE SUPERIOR, they cannot do much. They just keep what they think inside their heart/mind and think, “My happiness is not important. What I think is not important.” But in fact, without their awareness it bothers their mind, this case can trigger mental depression, although they don’t want to admit it.
The education given by their parents that the happiness of their husband and children is more important than their own also takes part in increasing the tendency of women to suffer from mental depression. Feeling that they are not important before their husbands and children will make many women underestimate themselves. The feeling being underestimated is similar to the feeling not important. When doing anything for the family, they must put the husband in the first priority, then the children. They are the last. Sometimes those women even don’t have time to comfort or satisfy themselves coz they have to take care of their husband and children. And this is taken for granted.
I want to refer to what Virginia Woolf said in her book A Room of One’s Own that everybody needs some time and some place to be alone, to be themselves, apart from their role as a mother and wife and do anything they want. People indeed need it.
Going back to my friend’s experience in the PRANIC clinic, she told me that she couldn’t convince those female patients that they probably suffered from mental depression. In Indonesia with still very strong gender-biased culture, it is still difficult to tell those (I call it conventional) women that it is okay for them to do anything to comfort themselves, that they need some time to be apart from their daily responsibilities. They also deserve to take some days off to be homemakers.
21.26 13042006

In her short story entitled “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a feminist writer from America living from 1860 till 1935 proposed writing to cure mental illness. In the short story, Gilman illustrated the heroine who suffered from postpartum depression was prescribed bed rest by her physician husband. Her husband insisted that she avoid intellectual activities such as reading, writing and painting. This is compatible with what Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar said in their book The Madwoman in the Attic that “the activity of writing, or producing art, was fraught with anxiety for most nineteenth-century women.” intellectual activities were believed to enhance the tendency for women to suffer from nervous breakdown in the nineteenth century America.

Since the heroine in the short story was prohibited to write by her husband, although she believed that writing even could help cure her, she had to write secretly, when her husband or her sister-in-law was not around her. Or, when she was writing, and then she saw one of them coming, she had to put her book and pencil aside quickly in order that they wouldn’t find her writing.

Gilman ended the story by leading the heroine into insanity. When this is viewed from Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, we can say that Gilman’s suppressed wish was that women would be led into insanity if they were not allowed to write, to express themselves openly and freely; women would be suffering from nervous breakdown during her entire lifetime when they were not respected as individual and were heard. Not all women in general, of course, but especially bright, articulate, hardworking and ambitious women who didn’t feel enough to have inactive life, without involving their intellectuality.

Diane Price Herndl in her book entitled Invalid Women, Figuring Feminine Illness in American Fiction and culture, 1840-1940 stated that “Gilman was never entirely free of her nervousness, but after becoming an active writer and speaker, she never suffered from it to the same degree as she had earlier.” She escaped from bed-rest medication prescribed by S. Weir Mitchell—the most well-known neurologist in the nineteenth century America when she suffered from postpartum depression after delivering her only child, Katharine. Gilman cured herself from her postpartum depression and nervousness by resuming her intellectual life—writing and lecturing about men-women equality all over America and some countries in Europe.

In the meantime …

I find many people around me underestimating the power of writing. Some months ago one private student of mine, female, in her early forties, told me that it is useless to write, especially write diary. Some female workmates of mine also said the same thing. They argued, “When you are married, your husband is your best friend, your best audience to talk to, to listen to you. Besides, after getting married, you belong to your husband. What if he doesn’t let you write? What if he says that it is better for you to use the time to write diary to be with your husband?”

Don’t they perceive egotism of men in those arguments? An understanding husband will let his wife have some time to be alone, if that’s what his wife needs—let’s say time to write a diary; time to be with her friends. Getting married doesn’t mean that people no longer socialize with their old friends, or even have new friends.

And I believe in writing, people can sharpen their ability in analyzing something; perhaps in some ways it is similar to having oral discussion with someone. However, writing really helps when people want to analyze something when nobody is around.

And I could perceive that in fact in that private student of mine’s case, she needed a trustworthy friend who is not her husband, someone else. She needed a good friend to talk to, to listen to her, that, to me, it could be substituted by a diary. “Writing diary? Count me out. Besides I am not good in writing, I don’t want my husband to read what I write. Don’t you agree with me that sometimes we also have right to have secret? I don’t want my husband to know what I write, just like I don’t want my husband to know what I usually talk to you.”

BINGO!

At last she admitted it; she needed a media to express something she could not express to her husband. Only unfortunately, she couldn’t write. And she didn’t even want to try it. I wish she tried it and found the amazing function of writing in expressing herself.

Another friend said to me that at last she needed to have a friend to discuss anything at home when she found out that in fact she no longer found her husband as a good partner in debate, due to the intellectual gap between them. “Sometimes I am tired to talk to him. He doesn’t understand. He even doesn’t want to try to understand what I am talking about. If he tries to give comment, it just shows that he doesn’t understand the core of the problem.” One day she complained to me. In my opinion, she still can sharpen her ability in having discussion by writing it–by discussing it with herself. This is what I sometimes do in writing some articles for my blog. But she said, “Well, I accept my life like this now. I married my husband coz I love him. He is my own choice.”

I observe that in Indonesia recently blogging has been more and more popular. This is a very good phenomenon, I believe. More and more people will try to write. More and more people want to share what they have in mind with other people via writing. The main obstacle, in my opinion, is that internet connection is still expensive in Indonesia . Not many people can afford to access it everyday. Therefore, since blogging is considered a serious and intellectual thing and many people access internet only to have fun (IN INDONESIA!!!), not many netters use this blogging technology yet. Some students of mine don’t show their interest yet. They say, “I go online to cyber cafes for fun, Ma’am, not to do something serious like that. No.” Some other students say, “Writing? Count me out.”

Well, I hope gradually more people will write after they find the useful function of writing. Just like what I mentioned in the beginning of this article, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and some other female writers in the nineteenth century America found writing as medication for their nervousness.

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